Since Google began using the “NoFollow” feature as a tip for indexing and crawling on March 1st, now is a perfect time to take a deeper look at nofollow urls, both internal and external, and examine the positives they give as well as alternative methods to use them.
What are Nofollow Links?
Bloggers were introduced to the rel=”nofollow” option by Google in 2005. It was created for those who were having trouble with spammers trying to establish links in the hopes of ranking for certain keywords like “Party Invites.” Since then, Google has advocated for the use of the attribute sponsored links.
The nofollow element instructs search engines not to redirect toĀ the marked outbound page, thus stating that the domain does not support the connection.
Natural vs. Unnatural Inbound and Outbound Links
Natural Links
Google examines the links that lead to each website to see whether they seem natural ā that is, if they have a typical link profile with connections from appropriate websites that contain both follow and nofollow links, and a regular number of links. A nofollow tag can be used for anything that isn’t organic.
Unnatural Links
These include links that according to Google appear as paid links or those developed to defraud the system. They could include press releases or guest content with additional keyword links.
NoFollow and NoIndex
There may beĀ some misunderstanding on how to prevent Google from indexing a website, so it is essentialĀ to make sure youĀ understandĀ the differences between nofollow and noindex, as well as their alternatives.
Individual urls can utilize nofollow, as previously indicated. Nofollow may be put to the <head> of a page to inform search engines that all hyperlinks on that page should be nofollowed You must use the noindex feature if you do not want Google to crawl or index a page of the website.
